Joel's Scattered Thoughts

Notes on things that interest me

Posts Tagged guild

Thoughts on The Guild

Aug 22

Posted by Joel in Games | No Comments

theguild After seeing the Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?  video I watched the first two seasons of The Guild.  I was very disappointed in the show.  The implication seems to be that if you play an MMO you are a damaged individual. 

I really don’t like that implication.  It takes the worst socialized, most obsessed players and presents them as the norm.  I realize that in a show with 5 minute episodes you can’t present in-depth studies of each character, but would it hurt to have one be a fairly normal person rather than people who are one phone call away from a mental hospital?  The person that comes the closest being normal is Bladezz and he’s just normal teenage boy stupid, not broken. 

I had hoped for a more balanced picture of gamers, especially given that Felicia Day plays World of Warcraft.  Instead this plays to the worst stereotypes of gamers and goes for cheap laughs at how socially inept some gamers are.  Ah well, D&D players have been waiting twice as long for a positive portrayal of their hobby. 

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Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?

Aug 17

Posted by Joel in Games | 1 Comment

This video amused me.  I had watched the first episode or two of The Guild and the humor struck me as the kind where you laugh at someone being embarrassed.  That kind of humor leaves me feeling slightly queasy rather than amused, so I quit watching the show at that point.  I may give it another shot.

(via NPC Comic).

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Exit Strategy

May 28

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

I found this post on Exit Strategy from Mirror Shield – Yakra’s Reflections on Tanking very much worth thinking about. I think that’s one of the places I failed in raid leading pre-Wrath. We lingered in Kara far too long instead of making a solid push into Zul’Aman. As a non-progression guild, I would up the number of kills to something in the 5-8 range, but there should definitely be a time when the guild is DONE farming a particular boss. If you want to raid it on off nights, go for it but otherwise it’s time to move on.

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Looting the Guild Bank

May 20

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

thief When I canceled my WoW subscription, I deliberately left people with access to the guild bank and a message to help themselves.  Wouldn’t you know it, two non-contributing players decided to clean it out.  Not take a reasonable amount and ride off into the sunset, but drain the bank dry of others’ contributions over a period of a week or two. 

REDACTED

In case you were wondering, it was a sting.  I was feeling nasty and paranoid and was curious to see how their ethics would hold up. 

I did give everyone access to the full contents of guild bank. I did tell the guild to help themselves to the contents of the guild bank. The blame is mine. By the letter of the law, they have done nothing wrong.

REDACTED

Conscience for sale: 2400 gold

By their fruits ye shall know them (Matthew 7:16)

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.
– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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Game Over

Apr 7

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

gameover One of the tricky things about MMOs is that there is no game over screen.  Even the top players in the top guilds still have more to strive for.  If your character has beaten all the top bosses and has all the top gear, you could always start another character with a different role and try to get that one to the top as well.  There are other aspects of the game you may have barely touched – time to try to excel at those.  Then there’s the next content patch with all its shiny newness, not to mention the rumors about the next expansion…

For me and WoW, game over seems to come when a number of friends leave.  Whether it’s a guild split, people quitting the game, people switching to other guilds or transferring off the server, there comes a point when I don’t see enough familiar faces when I log in.  Without the social aspect to keep me there the game isn’t fun anymore.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I came back to WoW at some point but for now I’ve had enough.  The nice thing about WoW is that gear-wise, the next expansion will reset everything anyway.  Should I wait till then to resume playing I will not be terribly far behind those who have been playing all the way through. 

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March Sadness

Mar 22

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Doofy the Paladin is suffering from March Sadness. Progress has ground to a halt as their roster of raiders has disappeared. We’re in much the same situation with our guild alliance. Historically we’ve run 2-3 nights per week, but we’ve lost about 9 of our 18 raiders. Some may come back but for now we’re lucky if we raid one night a week, let alone doing any progress raiding. On the bright side, I’m having fun gearing my toons up for dual specs and raiding.

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My WoW Resume (early 2009)

Feb 23

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

resume I was reading Matticus’ post, What GMs Want to See on Your Guild App, and I stared thinking about some of my accomplishments in WoW.  Since many of these were pre-3.0, I don’t have the achievements for them which makes me a little sad.

Healing

  • Raid healed all of Zul’Gurub and Molten Core, and most of AQ-20 at 60 and roughly the first third of Kara at 70
  • Leveled a holy priest from 1-60 in vanilla WoW, then to 70 in BC
  • References: Anath, Legionofone, Balm

Tanking

  • Tanked Naxxramas-10 (Arachnid Quarter, Plague Quarter, Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Thaddius) and Sartharion 0 drakes.
  • Leveled a protection warrior and protection paladin from 1-70 in BC, then to 80 in Wrath
  • Tanked Karazhan and the first 3 bosses in Zul’Aman in BC
  • Tanked BC Heroics with bear druid
  • References: Mazzarella, Beeferino

DPS

  • Progression raided Naxxramas with Retribution Paladin
  • Raided BC farm content on BM Hunter, Enhancement Shaman,  Warlock
  • References: Shamaniac, Jusy

Raid Leading

  • Helped organize a guild alliance
  • Raid led through Karazhan, part of ZA, and Naxxramas-10
  • References: Zurdante, Mornal

PvP

  • Obtained Knight title in classic WoW
  • Hit Exalted with Stormpike Guard back in the days of 12 hour AVs
  • I don’t PvP anymore

That’s all that comes to mind right now.  It’s fun to look back on the stuff I managed to get done.  I would say that raid leading is probably the most challenging part of the game – not the fights themselves but all the dealing with people and their issues, balancing things so that it all works out. 

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8 Questions Your Guild Should Ask Itself

Feb 10

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Matticus posted 8 Questions Your Guild Should Ask Itself.  Since his focus is on raiding, that’s where this quiz aims.  Here’s how I’d answer them for our guild alliance.

  1. Do you have a clearly defined identity? We are a raiding alliance.  We aim to allow people to raid even when they can’t commit to a regular schedule.
  2. Do you have a clearly defined schedule? We raid 2-3 times per week.  Raids are scheduled in advance and posted on the website.
  3. Do you actually FOLLOW that schedule? Yes.  First pull is at raid start time (or a little earlier).  If it isn’t within 15 minutes of raid start, the raid is cancelled.
  4. Do you have legitimate and fair looting system, with defined rules that are followed? We’re using roll – need for main spec, greed for offspec or alts.  We’re still working on some of the finer details, e.g.  what happens when you change mains/specs? 
  5. Do you have a plan for progression? Our main focus is 10 player progression.  So far our speed has kept pace with Blizzard’s release of new content.
  6. Do you have fun playing together? Yes, that is one of our reasons for existing.  When it’s not fun, stop playing.
  7. What is your vent environment like? Family friendly with some innuendo. 
  8. How are you with female players? About 1/3 to 1/2 of our players are female.  It’s not a novelty to have female players. 

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Why Raid?

Jan 18

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

It seems that loot drama is inevitable.  Raid leading is a stressful thing (and the pay sucks).  It seems to me that a decent raid leader, like a decent manager, is a jerk (the great ones are not, but that’s a whole other plane of skill).   Right now, if I want to raid, I have to raid lead.  Why raid?

The thing I like best about raiding is that it provides a chance to overcome challenges as a group.  Naxxramas is easy for advanced guilds, but for us it’s a challenge.  I’d say that Naxx is pretty much perfectly tuned for us right now.   We are downing bosses but it’s taking us a number of tries for most of them.  The fun of overcoming a challenge as a group is the reason I raid.

I don’t know where I want to go with raiding.  The thought of spending the next two years raiding doesn’t sound like fun.  How many times do I want to see Naxx?  

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Ret Paladin

Jan 10

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

ret_paladin I’m thinking of taking my paladin ret.  I don’t like tanking with her as much as I do on my warrior and right now our guild alliance has a surfeit of tanks.  I don’t think I’d raid or even instance with her, so it might be fun to try something new. 

If I do decide to pursue this, here are a few resources I’ll be consulting.

I have a pile of toons still to level and our raids don’t need more melee DPS at the moment, so those factors are somewhat of a disincentive. 

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Picking a New Realm

Dec 29

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

servers So you’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a while and have decided to make a fresh start and reroll on a new server.  How do you decide which server will be right for you? 

I’m assuming you’ve already decided on a server type, a faction, and have some idea of the play style and class(es) you enjoy.  If not take a look at WoW Insider’s current WoW Rookie column.  If you’re new to WoW, welcome here!

Server population affects a number of parts of the game.  A more highly populated server will have more people to play with, but also more people competing for the same resources.  WarcraftRealms is a census of the population on the different servers. Since it’s based on people submitting data rather than Blizzard numbers, it’s not 100% accurate but it can give you a pretty good picture of realm populations. If you’re playing on a PvP server, be sure to check out the Horde/Alliance ratio to have a rough idea of how often you’ll get ganked.

Your server’s time zone is also worth noting.  If you want to play with others pick a server where prime time (roughly 6-11 PM) matches your play schedule.  If not, pick one where it doesn’t. 

These two factors should narrow you list down to a dozen servers or so. Now it’s time to dig down a little further.

If you’re interested in endgame PvE look at WoWProgress to see how progressed a server is.  It will be easier to get into raiding on a server with many raiding guilds.  If PvP is more your thing, look at SK Gaming’s Arena Rankings or Warcraft Realm’s Battlegrounds page.  More teams/wins means more opportunities for you to get in on the fun.

Another factor to consider is the personality of your server. All servers will have loathsome jerks and terrific people.  However, there are some servers where one or the other predominate.  Take a look at the description for your server on WoWWiki’s Realms List.  I shudder to recommend it, but it might be worth looking at the Official Realm Forums.  You want to look at the reactions to announcements of accomplishments.  Is the announcer congratulated or mocked?Hopefully this will give you some idea of the kinds of personalities you may be dealing with.  Remember that mostly it’s the the scum of the server that post on the realm forums. 

I hope this will help you in your search for a new server.  Have fun!

(Inspired by Calling all Horde!! from Skeleton Jack)

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Helping People Get Gold

Dec 14

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

gold A few days back, Gevlon wrote about how to Help a guildie with money.  It was a lot more compassionate than I had expected from him.  It also looks like a lot more work than I’m willing to do unless I’m certain that the other person is sincere in their desire to make more gold.  If you know someone who is perpetually short of gold, or if you’re short of gold yourself, this is a great place to start. 

I would also recommend pointing them at Kunzite’s Gold Guide for a well expressed overview of the mindset behind making gold.  Sadly, a lot of the specific information is obsolete, but the general principles are still sound. 

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Classic Dungeon Solo Fun

Dec 12

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

ragnaros It looks as though Patch 3.08 is going to make classic dungeons more accessible to solo players and those who didn’t play WoW prior to Wrath. 

  • The ritual objects that used to require 3 players to activate in Blackrock Spire and Uldaman now only require 1.
  • You no longer need quintessence to summon Majordomo Executus.
  • You no longer need the Scepter of Celebras to teleport to the final section of Maraudon.
  • You no longer need the Mallet of Zul’Farrak to summon Gahz’rilla.
  • Nightbane is also being made accessible without the urn.

This makes it more likely that I’ll actually get into some of those old dungeons.  If Jaimie and I get bored, we can go and do those without having to get a group together.  I think there’s a decent chance our guild alliance will go burn through Molten Core one evening.  We didn’t before because we only had one person with the quintessence and we didn’t want to wait around for it to come off of cooldown.  Should be fun. 

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More or Less Social

Dec 5

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

social There are two things I would like to see added to World of Warcraft – one to make the game more social and one to make it less social. 

I’d like a way to chat with people in game from outside the game.  Why can’t I connect to WoW chat via an IM program for those times when I don’t actually want to be logged in but would  like to keep in touch with what’s going on in game.  At this point I’d settle for being able to send email to in game characters. 

I’d like a way to play invisibly so that I don’t show up on my guildmates/friends’ lists.  There are times when I just want to play and not talk with anyone.  It’s gotten to the point where I stop playing because I’m tired of the random chatter in guild.    I suspect my solution is going to be a /gquit, followed by a /ginvite when I feel like being sociable. 

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Leveling Blacksmithing

Dec 2

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

blacksmith At the request of one of the members of our guild alliance, I focused in on leveling blacksmithing last night.  Jaimie had spent way too much time mining saronite, eternals, and the odd bit of titanium so thanks to her I had the raw materials to proceed. 

I didn’t bother following any leveling guides.  If I could make an item from the Tempered Saronite set I made two so that both my paladin and my warrior would be geared for tanking.  The exceptions were the two Daunting pieces, which are better than the Tempered Saronite equivalents for tanking.  I wound up disenchanting about 8 items and now I have tons of Titanium Skeleton Keys but I’m almost at the point of being able to craft any blacksmithing item in the game.  I should hit that point tonight. 

Blacksmithing is expensive to level and so far the good stuff seems to be all BOE.  I suspect that if I had taken mining instead and used the money from that to buy the pieces I need, I’d have been way, way ahead.  Nevertheless, leveling professions is something I enjoy so that’s what I choose to spend my in game gold on.  Next big money sink is engineering! 

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Wrath Malaise

Nov 20

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

pressure I think I’ve figured out what’s bugging me about Wrath – it’s the (self-imposed) pressure to level.  I feel as though I ought to be one of the first (if not the first) in my guild alliance to level.  Given that my highest character is level 72, that’s not going to happen.  Okay, I could take my hunter, play day and night for the next three days and probably hit 80, but that wouldn’t be any fun.  I think I’m going to continue my current program of leveling an alt here and there and I’ll hit 80 when I get there.  There are a number of tanks leveling in our guild alliance so I won’t be leaving people high and dry.   I’m going to focus on the fun in game. 

EDIT: Larísa has a post along the same lines, Dealing with the fear of falling behind.

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Zero sum gold

Sep 26

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Gevlon of Greedy Goblin discusses loot distribution.  This time of transition as we move into the new expansion is a great time for thinking about this kind of thing.  As always, Gevlon manages to come up with an original take on the subject – one firmly founded in the practical wisdom of Goblin philosophy.  

Zero sum gold: People bid for the loot with gold, highest bidder distributes the money equally between the raiders. So if you win a Karazhan loot with 1000G bid, you have to pay 100G to everyone else (and 100 to yourself). This way the others get something too, just like in zero sum DKP but with the difference, that money is not bound to the guild, you can spend it wherever you want. So

  • It encourages preparation and demanding others to prepare, since no loot or money if no kill.
  • If you kill, you surely get something (money or loot)
  • Encourages farming or business, since you have better chance to loot if you have more money.
  • Allows PuG-ed people to come and equally participate.
  • Encourages participation in bosskills where you don’t want loot (since you get money).
  • Encourages well-geared players to stay in guild, since while they can’t get loot until the guild downs their boss, in the meantime you get very rich. This point is extremely important for the guild’s tank-keeping potential. Tanks are needed to be geared for the bosses, so little or no drop for them. But this way they are saved for farming which is hard for tanks.
  • No mod, administration, or tables needed (though 24 trades can be a pain, it can be decreased by giving all the money to the raid leader who distributes it at raidend.)

This is the goblin way!
By the way someone can say that "encourage farming" can backfire, people will spend more time farming (or worse, buying) gold, than preparation for raid. I don’t see it a problem. The system encourage people to check for the preparation of others, if the raid is unprepared, no loot or money. It’s true that the guy with the more money will get the loot, but he distributes this money, so next time you will be the guy with the more money.

The big thing I don’t like about this system is that it may encourage gold buying.  Even if the others don’t buy gold, when you’re dealing with limited playtime and you’re bidding against someone who plays 12 hours a day, you’re going to lose.  What happens when a warrior-only item drops and there’s only one warrior in the raid – does the warrior get away with bidding 1g for the item?  I’m sure there are other problems I’ve missed too.

Anyone have any thoughts on how the problems with this loot distribution system could be overcome?  I’d bet there’s a solution out there in real world economics.

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Zul’Aman Bear Mount

Sep 13

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

A while back guilds were selling Zul’Aman Bear mount runs for a five to ten thousand gold.  You show up, pay your gold, and the bear mount is yours at the end of the timed run.  With the pre-Wrath path this mount is no longer going to be available, so I imagine business is brisk.

Getting a bear mount that way does not appeal to me.  The only toon I would have considered it for is my dwarf hunter.  He’s had a bear pet from the start so having a bear mount would be fun.  Sadly he’s level 40ish and hasn’t been played for almost two years so he’s not likely to get one. 

I hope that Blizzard has some kind of equivalent accomplishment based mount in Wrath.  If I’m still raiding when they bring it in, I think there’s a good chance that our raid team could get it. 

bearmount

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Warhammer and Moving On

Sep 9

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

WAR_Hammer_v_Black-Orc The Warhammer MMO is coming out in a week or so.  I definitely will not be buying it on release, but I will be reading the reviews.  I’m particularly looking forward to seeing what Tobold has to say about it since he seems to write from a largely PvE perspective.  If Warhammer makes PvP fun for him, it’ll definitely be worth checking out.  In the meantime, Massively has put out a A World of Warcraft player’s guide to Warhammer Online.  It makes Warhammer sound interesting, but again I’m withholding judgement. 

I will be looking for a new game a few months after Wrath comes out.  Blizzard may do something amazing and revitalize WoW enough that I’m happy playing it until the next expansion.  However, I feel that I’ve pretty much tried everything in WoW at this point – leveling, exploration, different classes, battlegrounds, professions, healing, DPS, tanking, raid leading, guild leading.  The biggest exception is that I haven’t even set foot in Arenas on any of my toons.  There just isn’t much appeal to getting slaughtered and my reflexes aren’t good enough to do more. 

I’ve considered a number of MMOs and I expect that I will try a lot of them.  Eve Online’s economy might be fun to play with, but the idea of PvP with significant losses is a turnoff.  EverQuest 2 is supposed to have a vast world to explore, but I suspect the graphics may fall into the uncanny valley for me.  Lord of the Rings Online’s lack of customization and graphics that fall into the uncanny valley drive me nuts.  Warhammer is shiny and new, but if it’s mostly PvP I doubt I’d be interested.  Freerealms isn’t out yet, so who knows if it’ll actually be fun.  Ah well, there are always possibilities and maybe by the time I’m done with WoW I’ll find something to suit my tastes.

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Incentive and Social Networks

Aug 27

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

I was reading an article on how an economics experiment managed to get worked to pick a lot more strawberries.  The line that struck me was:

Again, workers prioritized money over social ties, abandoning groups of friends to ally themselves with the most productive co-workers who would accept them.

To me this sounds a lot like guild hopping in World of Warcraft. The desire for rewards or for proof that you excel at the game often trumps social networks.

I’ve found that this is one of the most frustrating things about being a raid leader.  Everyone has a cutoff point at which the new epics are not worth the social cost to obtain them.  For some people reaching endgame or raiding for 3 hours straight costs them too much time that they’d rather spend socializing outside the game.  Once some people reach a certain level of gearing they stop playing or greatly cut back on their play time or roll another alt.  Still others form social networks that are specifically aimed at beating the final boss or getting that legendary gear.  As each person reaches their cutoff point, they have broken ties with those whose cutoff point was earlier and they are breaking ties with those whose cutoff point is higher.  Trying to balance cutoff points for a group is tricky and leads to hurt feelings.

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